Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan: My Lords, does my noble friend appreciate that for many of us the change of attitude, particularly within the DWP, has meant that it is far easier for many people to obtain benefits than ever before or, certainly, before 1997? Moreover, instead of crocodile tears about fraud and incompetence, should we not worry about the larger problem of those who are deterred from claiming? It is not all down to complexity; old-fashioned social attitudes are denying these people their entitlement to the decent benefits which the Government are now providing.

Baroness Noakes: My Lords, for many years the Comptroller and Auditor-General has qualified his opinion of the DWP's accounts because of unacceptable levels of fraud and error. It is not therefore surprising that the latest PSA targets for the department have nothing whatsoever about tackling fraud and error?

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath: My Lords, PSA targets have been set for the department to reduce fraud and error. I am sorry to say that the noble Baroness is quite wrong. In terms of the department's record, I can inform your Lordships that in the spending review of 2004, the PSA 10 targets relate to reductions in fraud and error concerning income support and jobseeker's allowance.
	As for qualification of the accounts, I regret that they have been qualified. However, I would point out that they have been qualified for 15 years, going back into the Conservative government's performance.

Baroness Gardner of Parkes: My Lords, apparently if a council wishes to reduce the height of a hedge—I understand the advice is that not more than one-third should be reduced—the biggest hedges are the ones most caught in this problem. Can the Minister see a way whereby councils can charge only once? People are being charged £650 to go to the council to have one-third removed and they might have to go back to the council three times, whereas if a council could impose the order at the outset, only one fee would be charged, and the council could supervise the procedure?

Baroness Williams of Crosby: My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady D'Souza; I had not appreciated that she had risen to speak. I would always yield to her on this issue, and she is a Cross-Bencher. I want to pursue a slightly different aspect of the question that she raised. We have a special relationship with the United States and rendition is now very much a live issue in the Congress, where there has been a lot of debate about it. Given that, can the Minister assure the House that, using our own channels to the United States, we will make it absolutely clear that we oppose rendition and ask it to review its policy on that matter?

Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: The amendment would introduce a new clause to the Bill which relates to counter-terrorist powers and would amend Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Section 44 permits a police officer, within an authorised area, to stop and search an individual without any need to have a reasonable suspicion of unlawful behaviour. The officer can detain the individual for the duration of that search and, if an individual refuses to allow an officer to search him or attempts to leave while being detained, he will be guilty of an offence. The requirement of reasonable suspicion provides a fundamental safeguard against the arbitrary and discriminatory use of police powers that can be both intrusive and intimidatory. The requirement limits the circumstances in which an officer can exercise the power and provides the subject with a standard against which the lawfulness of the search can be tested.
	Over the years, police powers to stop and search have caused extreme tension between the police and the community, particularly in relation to disproportionate use against ethnic minorities. That has occurred even when the standard of reasonable suspicion has been in place. When that standard is removed, the potential for abuse is massively increased. I emphasise that I accept that, in a state of emergency, exceptional powers may be necessary. What concerns me and others—for example, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Liberty, and other organisations concerned with civil liberties and justice—is the way in which Section 44 is being used. At the DSEi arms fair in Docklands in September 2003, police officers used Section 44 to stop and search large numbers of peaceful protestors. The Metropolitan Police originally denied that that was happening but was forced to change its stance when evidence came to light.
	The organisation Liberty issued judicial review proceedings against the Met claiming that the use of Section 44 against the peace protestors was unlawful because it was not being used to combat terrorism but rather to assist public order policing. In addition, the legislation itself was challenged as being incompatible with European convention rights since it leads inevitably to arbitrary use. The litigation is currently travelling to the House of Lords, and the Appellate Committee will consider the challenge in January 2006.
	In the course of the Liberty proceedings, it was discovered that the entire Greater London area has been subject to a rolling Section 44 authorisation since February 2001—indeed, since before 9/11. That effectively changes the law on stop and search for a significant proportion of the population indefinitely. The secrecy of the way in which authorisations have been given is unjustified and, in the light of the acknowledged aim of creating a hostile environment for potential terrorists, is in fact having the opposite effect.
	Since the arms fair incident, there have been several other occasions on which the flaws in Section 44 have been highlighted. The release of Home Office figures on stop and search show that a disproportionate number of minority ethnic individuals, particularly Asians, have been stopped and searched under Section 44. In 2002 to 2003, the number of Asians subject to stop and search under this section rose by 300 per cent. On the previous occasion the noble Baroness said that that had gone down slightly in the following year. However, a survey conducted by the BBC suggests that there has been a significant increase since 7 July this year, with many police forces saying that in the months since that date they have exercised stop and search powers under Section 44 on a basis three times greater than in the whole of the previous year.
	In the wake of the 7 July bombings, two incidents have once again drawn attention to the inherent risk of granting police powers without safeguards. The chief constable of the British Transport Police remarked publicly that his police officers, when exercising their Section 44 powers, would not waste their time searching white old ladies but would concentrate on young Asian men. Since those remarks, the British Transport Police has met the organisation Liberty and revised its guidance to officers to take out references to particular ethnic groups. But an individual officer remains free to exercise stop and search powers on the basis of racial stereotyping without the protection of the "reasonable suspicion" standard.
	At the Labour Party conference in Brighton, Mr Walter Wolfgang was detained but not searched by a police officer purporting to use his powers under Section 44—a section that allows only a search of an individual and detention for that purpose. Mr Wolfgang has publicly stated that he believes that officers were stopping and searching only those displaying controversial political views. It is questionable whether opposing the Government's foreign policy on the war in Iraq can be said to be controversial. Mr Wolfgang has since received a formal public apology and an acknowledgement that the police officer acted wrongly, and the Sussex constabulary has revised its guidance to officers. Nevertheless the incident highlights the way in which extraordinary police powers can be abused if they are not carefully monitored.
	Like Liberty, I believe that a stop and search power that does not require reasonable suspicion should be used only in a genuinely blanket or random way. Since an officer already has the power to stop and search an individual on the basis of reasonable suspicion—under Section 43 of the Terrorism Act 2000—any use of Section 44 on the basis of suspicion must be triggered by a standard that is lower than reasonable. In other words Section 44 is being used to allow officers to stop and search on the basis of unreasonable suspicion, which is a recipe for discriminatory use.
	There are only two appropriate ways to use the power—I do not put my suggestions in order of preference. First, we should designate a limited area for a limited time and then search every individual in that area. If, for example, the limited area was Downing Street because President Bush was visiting, anyone in that area of Whitehall wanting to pass through could be stopped and searched indiscriminately and it would apply to everybody. If everyone was treated exactly the same there could be no scope for discrimination or arbitrariness. Secondly, if that is not possible because of lack of resources or some other genuine reason, we should stop and search on a truly random basis, such as every fifth person or every tenth vehicle passing a particular point or officer.
	While it is difficult to legislate for that approach, the proposed amendment to Section 44 would place limits on the section's use and would prevent the abuses of power that happen now. The amendment would change the standard for authorisation of the use of Section 44 from being considered "expedient" for the purposes of preventing terrorism to being "reasonably believed to be necessary". It would change the basis for the authorisation. Secondly, it would reduce the area that can be covered by a Section 44 authorisation so that authorising an entire police area, for example, a county or the whole of Greater London, would no longer be straightforward. We would do that by introducing a proportionality test.
	Thirdly, the amendment introduces a two-tier process for making Section 44 authorisations. Police officers may give the authorisation but it will last only 24 hours, subject to a 24-hour extension by a High Court judge. If the authorisation is needed to last longer than 24 hours, it should go outside the police's remit, and the Secretary of State may authorise a period of up to 28 days, but that must be laid before both Houses of Parliament to provide accountability. Fourthly, the amendment introduces a requirement to publicise authorisations within seven days to allow individuals to know their rights and again to increase accountability.
	Finally, I want to quote something that was said by the Metropolitan Police Authority in evidence to the Home Affairs Committee on 8 July 2004. It said that it had been given "powerful evidence" that Section 44 was having a "hugely negative impact" on community relations, and added:
	"Section 44 powers do not appear to have proved an effective weapon against terrorism and may be used for other purposes, despite the explicit limitation expressed in the Act".
	The Metropolitan Police Authority went on:
	"It has increased the level of distrust of our police. It has created deeper racial and ethnic tensions against the police. It has trampled on the basic human rights of too many Londoners. It has cut off valuable sources of community information and intelligence. It has exacerbated community divisions and weakened social cohesion".
	The Joint Committee on Human Rights has noted mounting evidence that the powers under the Terrorism Act 2000 are being used disproportionately against members of the Muslim community in the United Kingdom. It is for those reasons that I have placed the amendment before the Committee. I beg to move.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I thank my noble friend for giving us an opportunity to debate this issue, which relates to Section 44. We think that Section 44 is merited and that it does exactly what it was intended to do inasmuch as stop and search under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is an important tool in the ongoing fight against terrorism. As part of a structured anti-terrorist strategy, the powers help to deter terrorist activity by creating a difficult environment for would-be terrorists to operate in. That deterrent effect means that there is a crucial difference between the powers under Section 44 and the other stop and search powers.
	An authorisation under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act gives the police the power to stop and search pedestrians, vehicles, drivers and passengers in the area specified in the authorisation. I remind my noble friend that those areas can be very limited indeed and can, if the need arises, be quite precise. An authorisation can be given only if it is considered expedient for the prevention of acts of terrorism. Authorisations are made by an officer of ACPO rank and must be confirmed by the Secretary of State within 48 hours to remain valid after that period. The powers can be authorised in particular locations and for a particular period.
	The justification for authorising the use of the powers is intelligence-led and based on an assessment of the threat against the United Kingdom and how that transfers to potential targets within a force area. My noble friend's proposal would limit the use of those powers to instances where there is a "specific threat". Intelligence rarely allows such a defined threat to be identified. In our respectful submission, the police must be allowed to make informed and evidence-based assessments of where the powers are best utilised according to the information available.
	In 2004, the Home Office produced guidance for forces which requires any officer making an authorisation to set out in detail the evidence to support the authorisation and how that relates to the assessment of the terrorist threat. The guidance also states:
	"Special attention should be given to whether the powers are required across an entire force or whether a designated area, or indeed a number of designated areas, can be identified. Where powers are authorised force wide, the authorising officer should explain the reasons in detail for rejecting the option of a designated area and applying the powers more extensively".
	The decision to make an authorisation is an operational one for the chief officer concerned and it is appropriate that that remains the case. The power is, however, subject to considerable scrutiny. As well as requiring authorisation at senior officer level and Secretary of State confirmation for authorisations over 48 hours, any authorisation can be cancelled by the Secretary of State at any time. All authorisations are carefully considered and confirmed only if they are deemed a proportionate response to the threat. This system is entirely appropriate, giving as it does the operational discretion to the police and an executive decision to the Secretary of State, who remains answerable, ultimately, to the electorate.
	There is no requirement in the Terrorism Act for either the police or the Home Office to publicise authorisations under Section 44. To routinely and proactively identify areas that have such authorisations in place would identify areas where similar powers were not in place. This would assist terrorists in identifying areas where the powers were not in use and assist their planning of attacks in areas they considered more vulnerable. Some information about where the powers have become authorised will become available purely as a consequence of the powers being used. We recognise that communities play a vital role in combating terrorism, and the police will always seek to share as much information as possible with the public. However, a statutory requirement that does not take account of operational sensitivities is not a solution.
	We are undertaking work with the police to develop more detailed guidance on the circumstances in which Section 44 powers should be used, in order to increase consistency and reassure the public that the powers are used appropriately.
	It is never appropriate to stop and search a person purely on the basis of personal facts such as ethnicity. That would be both discriminatory and operationally na-ve. PACE Code A states:
	"Officers must take particular care not to discriminate against members of minority ethnic groups in the exercise of these powers. There may be circumstances, however, where it is appropriate for officers to take account of a person's ethnic origin in selecting persons to be stopped in response to a specific terrorist threat (for example, some international terrorist groups are associated with particular ethnic identities)".
	This should be used only—we emphasise, only—as one of a range of factors, which must also be supported by available intelligence; for example, a person's behaviour, gender, age, and the vulnerability of the location. This is also consistent with the Home Office stop and search manual, which was published in April this year. Countering the terrorist threat and ensuring good community relations and involvement are interdependent. Appropriate consultation should be undertaken in those circumstances.
	We agree with my noble friend that the sensitivities about this are critical, the need to operate proportionately is essential and the powers must be exercised with integrity. We believe that the procedures we have in place deliver that. Stops and searches under Section 44 are subject to the same recording requirements as other stop and search powers. The joint Home Office, ACPO and APA guidance issued to the police service in April this year points to the role of the following: the police authority, in monitoring police stop and search data on a quarterly basis and providing a bridge with the communities they serve; the chief constable, in setting out a clear policy on the appropriate use of the powers, with an identified ACPO lead responsible for supervision and monitoring. That monitoring goes down the line, ultimately to the first-line supervising sergeants, who are responsible for ensuring that every record of a stop is examined and any anomalies pursued.
	The Government have also set up a delivery board and a community panel to report to Ministers, analysing the use of stop and search powers in relation to minority ethnic communities. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Adebowale, for the sterling work he is doing in that regard.
	For those reasons, we do not believe that this is an appropriate amendment to make. I hope that in that light my noble friend will feel able to withdraw it.

Baroness Williams of Crosby: I apologise to the Minister for the misunderstanding on our Benches about who would speak when.
	I shall start where the Minister began. The problem on stop and search powers is that a balance has to be struck. They are undoubtedly often a very effective weapon against terrorism and serious crime, as the Minister indicated, but on the other hand their use arouses a great deal of concern and often a considerable sense of threat and intimidation among people who, for one reason or another, feel particularly vulnerable to stop and search procedures.
	The noble Baroness will know that since the 7 July attacks there has been a substantial increase in the use of stop and search under Section 44. More people have been stopped and searched since then than in the whole of the preceding year. The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, quoted the troubling evidence given by the Metropolitan Police Authority. It refers to the impact on attitudes and opinions particularly among minority communities, which the Committee should pay careful attention to. That is also borne out by the remarks of the most senior Muslim officer in the Metropolitan force, Mr Ghaffur, who indicated that stop and search was a double-edged weapon.
	The police must rely strongly on information from the minority communities. There is no better base for what the noble Baroness rightly referred to as intelligence-based policing. Yet if those communities are alienated—the evidence of the Metropolitan Police Authority was certainly that they were being increasingly alienated—that information and intelligence will not be forthcoming and the battle against terrorism will be weakened.
	The noble Baroness referred to PACE code A, which says that religious belief should not be a factor in determining the use and targeting of stop and search procedures. However, there is also now a requirement that the person stopped and searched must be informed by the police officer and that that matter should be recorded. Code G, which has recently come into force—the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, referred to it in a debate on 9 December—has an attractive aspect, saying that an arrest should take place only if the police officer is convinced of its necessity.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, specifically included a test of necessity, not a test of expediency, in her amendment. I therefore wonder whether the Minister might consider the appropriateness of that aspect of the amendment, part of which she obviously does not willingly accept. Will she consider whether the test of necessity fits better with code G than merely a test of expediency, which is much more open to criticism and to a belief that the police officer concerned may be prejudiced in the steps he has taken?
	The amendment also measures proportionality. The Minister eloquently defended the argument—as she usually does—about proportionality, but the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, referred to the rolling authorisation under Section 44 for the whole of London over the past two years. It is hard to see how that could be described as proportionate. Is the whole of London really at risk in such as way as to justify stop and search powers over the whole city for such a long period?
	I respect the Minister's concern about getting the balance right, but part of the argument behind the amendment is that the balance is not quite right. The balance has drifted a little too far towards measures that allow stop and search over wide areas and long periods. Members of the Committee will be as aware as I am that the sense in London of our being under very close police surveillance is very different from that which obtains in many other cities. It is interesting that West Yorkshire Police, which might be considered to have a specific and difficult problem, given that several of the 7 July people came from that county, are very reluctant to use stop and search powers, specifically because they recognise their alienating effect on the community that they are obliged to police.
	I hope that the Minister will consider very carefully whether there cannot be some tightening up of the authorisation on such wide bases, both geographically and temporally, of current stop and search powers and whether that might not improve and increase the level of support and co-operation from all our communities as compared with the difficulties pointed to by the Metropolitan Police Authority and Commissioner Ghaffur.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: As the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, said, Section 44 can be an important weapon for combating terrorism, but not if it is a blunderbuss that is not aimed at any specific target at any particular time. When we hear that for a number years a rolling authorisation has covered the whole of the metropolitan area, it is clear that the focus of Section 44 powers has been lost.
	We have to look at the experience of the way in which the provision has been used. One has to agree with the sentiments expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland: the section can be confined to a particular location at a particular time; it is an operational decision so that it is a proportionate response to a terrorist threat that should be used with sensitivity and integrity. Those are marvellous sentiments, but the effect of the way in which the section has been used is to demonstrate that it is too loosely drafted. Its use of the word "expedient" in subsection (3) requires amendment in the way that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, has proposed. Instead of giving an authorisation where the person giving it considers it "expedient", the person should give it when he or she reasonably believes it to be necessary for the prevention of acts of terrorism.
	It is right that the noble Baroness's amendments go on to define more narrowly the place and time. In subsection (4), she suggests that, instead of the whole of a police area outside Northern Ireland—or the whole of the Metropolitan Police district, or the whole of the City of London and so on—the authorisation should relate to a part that is actually the subject of a terrorist threat. I do not accept the argument that by defining a particular part—and publicising that, so that everybody knows where it is—you therefore leave open other broad areas where Section 44 authorisation has not been obtained.
	For those reasons, we support the noble Baroness's amendment.

Lord Elton: I add a quick proviso to what the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford has just said, which is that we are apparently moving fairly inexorably towards the enlargement of police areas. This Bill will no doubt be an Act in force when that happens. There will not be an early opportunity to amend it, and great resistance to using parliamentary time to do so anyway. It should therefore be in a form which is fit for purpose when that change comes in, if it does.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: I should say to my noble friend and to the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, and the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, that they should not misunderstand the Government's own concern about the way in which these powers should and must be used in order to maintain confidence in the exercise of them. It was for precisely that reason that we set up the stop and search action team, the delivery board and the community panel to report to Ministers. We were very conscious of the need for real, robust and appropriate procedures which would enable us to scrutinise what was being done and to alter practice and procedure if necessary.
	So the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, about guidance is very much part of the work that we have undertaken with the assistance of the panel and the delivery board. We are working with ACPO and the National Centre for Policing Excellence on guidance which will include provisions on the role of community consultation and assessing the impact that the powers have on communities. This will include full co-operation with police authorities. So we understand the impact that this can have.
	However, taking up the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Kingsland—in answer, in part, to the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams—about necessity, their concerns are also very real and we have to deal with them. That is the reality now. I must, with respect, advocate a great deal of caution when my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws refers to the "whole of London". We are very clear that we never state the area to which the Section 44 order applies. I reiterate what I said earlier: in identifying those areas to which Section 44 applies, we take into account the threat, the assessment made, the location and the reasons for it. Each Section 44 application has to justify why that area is to be identified for the use of Section 44. Every single area goes into that type of critical assessment by a Minister—usually the Home Secretary or the Minister identified. I have had the onerous burden of looking at Section 44 applications. I can assure the Committee that each application is scrutinised, and the evidence adduced to support it is looked at, before a ministerial decision is made as to the propriety and proportionality of what is being requested. Because I cannot from the Dispatch Box answer the assertions that are made, noble Lords should not assume that those assertions are necessarily correct. I can assure the Committee that the orders are proportionate and appropriate. The Government have been very clear about that.
	We have to remember also that Section 44 exists to deter and disrupt. It does not necessarily exist simply because there is a specific threat against a specific person on a specific date at a specific place. Assessments of vulnerability and the nature of the threat are made. Relying on that assessment, decisions on whether a Section 44 order is merited are made. If it is no longer merited, the Secretary of State, or a Minister acting on his behalf, has an opportunity not to confirm that order. If an order is not confirmed, it lapses within 48 hours. If it comes to the attention of the Minister within 48 hours—before that ordinary period has elapsed—and the Minister disagrees with it, we can discharge that order on behalf of the Home Secretary. Noble Lords need to be conscious of the rigour which is adopted in relation to these orders.
	I should also make it plain that the stop-and-search statistics will of course be affected by the areas in which Section 44 operates. Those areas will differ in complexion and the nature of the population. What may appear as disproportionate in national statistics may be entirely proportionate when one looks at the area to which the Section 44 order applied. I can assure your Lordships that these issues will continue to be scrutinised.
	I accept the concern that has been raised by the noble Baroness, but I assure the Committee that Section 44 has within it sufficient flexibility both to keep our country safe and to make sure that it is not used in a way that inures to the disadvantage of our civil liberties. That balance is maintained in the procedure which now exists pursuant to Section 44.

Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws: I am sorry my noble friend was not present when I made the argument in the first instance, because that is precisely my argument. It is absolutely right, when there is a set of circumstances where you want special powers—where there is intelligence, or a visit by a state leader, or a political event taking place—that you do not have to have suspicion, but would just stop every fifth person. Or you could stop and search everyone, and we would all, as citizens, agree to that happening. One does not want powers to be directed against someone because they wear a political t-shirt that someone does not like, or against minority communities who may see them as racially discriminatory. One could tighten Section 44 in a way that would prevent that kind of use of the power, which interferes with the "hearts and minds" argument that is so essential to intelligence-gathering. Your Lordships may have the opportunity afterwards to see the Hansard report of this, because that is the argument I am making.
	These powers are necessary, but it is how they are exercised that is so important. One is seeking to create a tighter regime and some parliamentary involvement by allowing Parliament to be aware of the existence of notices. I hope that we may reflect on this in the period in between. The drafting in this amendment may be inappropriate, and maybe the Government themselves can come up with some better formulation. What is needed here is a much tighter constraint on the way the section is currently being used.
	Intelligence is key to defeating terrorism. Of course that cannot be done by laws alone, however strong and severe they might be. Indeed, certain measures may at times be counter-productive. I hope that what is being suggested here is a sensible, measured and practical attempt to constrain the way in which these powers have been used over the past two years. It should not be too broadly drafted, but should operate within a much more limited time frame. I hope that the Government will take time to think again on the suggestions that the amendment contains, but I beg leave to withdraw it.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
	This short Bill extends the life of the provisions contained in Part VII of the Terrorism Act 2000 until 31 July 2007, with an option to extend the provisions for one year only thereafter. Without this Bill, the provisions would lapse in February 2006.
	The Part VII provisions are particular to Northern Ireland. They contain measures designed to tackle the threat of terrorism connected with the affairs only of Northern Ireland. That is distinct from the permanent counter-terrorism provisions in the UK, which are designed to tackle terrorism more generally.
	The Bill also makes some changes to Northern Ireland counter-terrorism legislation. It permanently repeals some of the Part VII provisions that are no longer required. It also gives the Attorney-General greater discretion to certify cases out of the Diplock system of non-jury trial, and grants the Secretary of State the ability to make transitional provision for any of the Part VII provisions which cease to have effect.
	I would particularly like to explain the July 2007 date is contained on the face of the Bill. On 28 July this year, the IRA made an historic statement ending its armed campaign. In the light of that, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland announced a programme to normalise security measures in Northern Ireland.
	The security situation in Northern Ireland has improved significantly. Coupled with that, the permanent counter-terrorism legislative framework in the UK has become even stronger and more effective since the passing of the Terrorism Act 2000. These two developments together mean that the temporary provisions will no longer be necessary in the future.
	Subject to a continuing improvement in the security environment in Northern Ireland, the normalisation programme envisages the repeal of counter-terrorism legislation particular to Northern Ireland in the final four months of that programme. If the security situation does not support it, normalisation and the repeal of the Part VII provisions will not go ahead. That is why the Bill contains a once-only power for the Secretary of State to extend the life of the provisions beyond 2007, for up to a year.
	We have a duty to protect the safety and security of the people of Northern Ireland and we will not do anything to jeopardise this. That is why, if the security situation does not support the repeal of the provisions in 2007, we will extend them for a further year. If that is not sufficient, then, of course, the whole thing will lapse, and we will return to Parliament and seek the retention of Part VII for a further period beyond that date. That, of course, would have to be done by primary legislation.
	The noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, who is the Government's reviewer of counter-terrorism legislation, has said that this approach is:
	"justified on the merits and proportional".
	We are optimistic that the time is right for the repeal of Part VII and a return to normalised security arrangements, but we are also cautious. This Bill ensures that we can continue to protect the people of Northern Ireland by providing the law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to combat terrorism in Northern Ireland. I commend the Bill to the House.
	Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Rooker.)

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I am grateful for the support—sometimes measured, sometimes almost unqualified, as the noble Lord just said—for the Bill. I shall do my best to answer some of the detailed points. We can address in Committee in the new year those that I do not cover.
	In one respect, we are continuing existing law. We are not making major changes today. Therefore, I shall confine my remarks to the contents of the Bill, which maintains the status quo in some respects. There would have had to have been a deterioration of some substance if we had had to talk about even a one-year extension to 2008. On the basis of the significant progress that has been made, we are confident that 2007 is fine; 2008 is a longstop. Beyond that, fresh legislation would be needed to deal with what would be a fresh situation, because, quite clearly, things would not have worked out in an acceptable way.
	The International Monitoring Commission's seventh report recognised the IRA's statement as being very significant. The report also states that initial signs, following the Provisional IRA's statement, are encouraging. The Secretary of State has drawn his conclusions from that. As has been said, it is not the end game. The report in which we will really be interested is due before the end of January, because that will cover a longer time span. The first report dealt only with the first few weeks following the IRA's statement of 28 July. The later report will deal with a further three months, so some important points are yet to be taken on board. Nevertheless, the IMC judged the IRA's statement to be significant.
	We are putting what pressure we can—if "pressure" is the right word to use—on the loyalists to decommission. We want all groups to decommission, simply because we want to return to the rule of law, and not the rule of the gun and intimidation. We call regularly on those with influence to help bring this about. I fully accept that the Liberal Democrats agreed to five years in 2000, as the noble Lord, Lord Smith, said. The situation has been regularly scrutinised since then, and that has been useful.
	I fully accept what has been said about the Diplock Courts. There is no question that they have served the people of Northern Ireland well. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has recommended on several occasions that a three-judge court would be a potential replacement for Diplock Courts, but no firm conclusions have been drawn. We are committed to the return of jury trials. That was implicit in what the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, said, and it has obviously got to be the long-term aim. Subject to an enabling environment, the Diplock system will cease to have effect by the end of July 2007—that is, the expiry of Part VII—but we are looking actively at what may be required after that period for paramilitary-type trials where jurors could be subject to intimidation, because we want to ensure the effectiveness of the criminal justice system as we go forward. We do not want to prejudge, certainly not during the passage of this Bill. I freely admit that I will not be in a position in Committee to elaborate on what might be the replacement for Diplock Courts. But we are mindful that to move from Diplock to no-Diplock for everything will not be possible. Therefore, we are actively reviewing the situation and looking at potential replacements.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Park, spoke strongly about the devolution of the criminal justice system. We could not devolve policing and justice to the Northern Ireland Assembly if it returned tomorrow. The conditions are not right. Legislation will be required. That commitment was made as part of the peace process. In the early part of next year, the Government will indeed bring forward legislative proposals, and they will be subject to scrutiny in both Houses of Parliament, but they will lie unused until the conditions are absolutely right. So it does not automatically follow that if the Assembly returned tomorrow, we would devolve those functions. We need to pass the legislation first. The conditions would have to be absolutely right before both Houses of the Westminster Parliament devolved the criminal justice system to Northern Ireland. In the mean time, we are strengthening the criminal justice system so that it can tackle the issues of intimidation and organised crime which the noble Baroness mentioned, but a broader devolution will not happen overnight. Separate primary legislation will be brought forward for that. It will be given Royal Assent and then parked until the situation is more satisfactory.
	One or two noble Lords mentioned Section 108. I shall quote the Explanatory Notes before I give a longer explanation. They state:
	"Section 108 allows for the oral evidence of a police evidence, of at least the rank of superintendent, to be admissible as evidence that the accused is or was a member of a specified organisation. The accused cannot be committed for trial, found to have a case to answer or convicted solely on the basis of this statement".
	That is a very important caveat.
	In moving towards a normalised security environment, as we hope we are in Northern Ireland, it would not be necessary or appropriate to maintain any of the special provisions contained in Part VII. As the House knows because of other legislation going through on a UK-wide basis, the UK has strengthened terrorism legislation. It is some of the strongest and most effective in the world, so we are fairly confident that the permanent counter-terrorism powers that apply throughout the UK will be sufficient to deal with any residual terrorist threat that may linger, because these things will take a while. I suspect the tail will be quite long when it comes to the total elimination of terrorism, but we are making good progress to date.
	I shall respond briefly to what the noble Lord, Lord Laird, said about sleepers and spies in the Republic of Ireland—a European Union partner, but for practical purposes a foreign country, for which I do not speak at this Dispatch Box. Neither the British Government nor this Parliament have any responsibility at all for counter-terrorism measures in the Republic of Ireland. That is a matter for the Irish Government to address. As I have said, though, here in the UK—and obviously we work with our European partners and neighbours—we have some of the strongest and most effective counter-terrorism legislation in the world. We are satisfied that it is sufficient to protect the people of this country.
	I have one more general point, following the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran. In renewing this legislation, including dates when it will completely expire, the Government and Parliament are sending a signal that things have changed; that progress has been made, substantially over the past 10 years and very substantially in the past five; and that the security situation has shown, in the words of the IMC, "significant improvement" since 28 July last year. But there is still a massive need to build trust across and within the communities. There is no question about that. To bring about a normal civic society in Northern Ireland, as well as a normalised security situation, will need men and women of substance in positions of leadership. They are needed to operate the normal processes that we take for granted in the rest of Great Britain, which either Northern Ireland has not been able to do, or for which, in recent years, only people of non-sufficient substance have been available. This will require many changes and many pressures.
	As the Secretary of State has said, there are some corners to be turned. As we know from what is happening at the moment in the other place, there will be some legislation that is difficult to stomach. It is evil, but it is necessary because of the process we are engaged in. We hope that, at the end of the parliamentary process, and with the other actions taken, that extra trust can be in place. Without it, progress will not be made—it will be superficial. Nevertheless, I am grateful for the widespread support for the continuing of this legislation, and I look forward to debating in greater detail the contents of the Bill in Committee in the new year.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
	This momentous Bill is very brief. It will do two things. First, Clause 1 will implement Bulgaria and Romania's accession treaty in United Kingdom law. In other words, it will facilitate their accession to the European Union. Secondly, Clause 2 will allow the Government to set the terms on which Bulgarian and Romanian workers will be granted access to the United Kingdom's labour market for a maximum seven-year transitional period.
	I shall begin with Clause 1, and Bulgaria and Romania's accession to the EU. European Union enlargement has become a critical part of the process that has transformed Europe from being the,
	"breeding ground of pestilence and hate",
	described by Winston Churchill to a strong union of nation states, secure in their borders, sharing the same democratic and humane values, and enjoying peace, prosperity and stability. Enlargement has helped democratic governments of developing countries that have been dominated by fascism and communism, thereby enabling millions of people to have a voice in how they are ruled. It has reinforced the rule of law and respect for human rights, and has given us new partners in tackling the challenges of cross-border crime and terrorism.
	Enlargement has also provided new consumers for United Kingdom goods and services, and new markets for our firms. High street names such as Next, Mothercare, Marks & Spencer and Tesco are just examples of the companies now operating through the 10 new member states. Tesco has 33 stores in Slovakia and over 40 in Hungary. Hundreds more British firms are benefiting from the enlarged EU—Vodafone, HSBC, BP, Shell and GlaxoSmithKline, to name just a few. It is therefore not surprising that enlargement has become an issue on which this House has been united, and I am delighted to be able to say that cross-party consensus remains just as strong as was clearly evident in 2003, when there was universal support for the EU accessions Bill for the 10 countries of eastern and central Europe. As the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said on Second Reading on that occasion,
	"we are . . . thankful that at last the moment has arrived when these vigorous and independent states, many of which have been through terrible trials and experiences, join the enlarged European Union".—[Official Report, 3/7/03; col. 1070.]
	This Bill is intended to do the same for two more eastern European countries that have emerged from similar trials and experiences. Bulgaria and Romania are also vigorous, independent states that have made similarly impressive advances in the space of a few years. Bulgaria's economy has consistently grown at double the EU average during the last five years; unemployment has been halved in that same period. Romania has performed strongly as well; inflation is down from over 100 per cent in the late 1990s to around 8 per cent today. It has also successfully attracted more direct foreign investment than any other state in south-east Europe.
	The prospect of EU membership has also spurred both countries to make real progress in political and economic reform. The European Council acknowledged that progress in December 2004 when it formally closed accession negotiations with both countries, agreeing that they should be ready for membership in January 2007. Four months later, in April 2005, the 25 member states of the EU signed a joint accession treaty with both countries which envisages their accession on 1 January 2007. However, unlike in previous accessions, the timing is not guaranteed. Both countries need to continue to make progress in their EU-related reforms. If they do not and either Bulgaria or Romania is deemed to be "manifestly unprepared" for membership, EU member states can decide to delay that country's entry by a year. That new approach is designed to ensure that countries joining the EU sustain their reforms right up to accession and indeed beyond. That is in the EU's interests, and in those of the countries which want to join.
	The European Commission is responsible for monitoring both countries' preparations. On 25 October it produced detailed and rigorous reports on their performance against EU commitments. In presenting these reports, Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn said that:
	"Bulgaria and Romania have achieved significant progress so far in the preparations for accession. But, the jury is still out".
	The reports highlight a range of areas in which Bulgaria and Romania need to make urgent progress to be ready for accession in 2007. That includes addressing the problem of corruption which, in both countries, remains a corrosive agent, undermining public and business confidence. Part of the problem lies with their justice systems, which need further reform. Bulgaria must also tackle head-on the problem of organised crime. The daylight assassination of a high-ranking financier in October demonstrated starkly the scale of the challenge in that area.
	However, there were also a range of more specific technical concerns. For example, both countries need to do more to bring their agricultural and food safety standards up to those of the EU member states. They need to improve their capacity to absorb EU funding streams, to enhance their protection of intellectual property rights and—particularly in Romania's case—to do more to tackle environmental pollution. In the coming months, the Commission will continue monitoring the progress of both countries, targeting in particular areas of serious concern identified in the reports. It will then produce further reports next April or May.
	If the Commission has then judged there to be a serious risk of either or both of Bulgaria and Romania being "manifestly unprepared", as the words were, for membership in January 2007, the European Council can then decide to delay their entry. In addition, the Commission can impose more targeted safeguards and measures to tackle problems in specific areas. Those were considered for previous enlargements but, happily, in the event did not prove necessary.
	We are content that the EU has the right mechanisms in place to protect our interests, and remain confident that both countries can be ready to join the EU on schedule in January 2007. Yet they cannot afford to be complacent. They need to take vigorous actions now to address the concerns identified by the Commission. Of course, we will continue to provide bilateral and other assistance targeted in the areas which matter most. We already have three advisers working in Romania on corruption issues, and embassy liaison officers in both countries working with their counterparts on drugs and people trafficking. We are funding various projects in both countries focusing on human rights, judicial training and institutional capacity building.
	I am sure that your Lordships will be interested to know exactly how much Bulgarian and Romanian membership will cost, since their accession coincides with the discussions which have taken place over the next financial perspective of the EU, from 2007 to 2013. Those costs have been the matter of recent negotiation. That said, most EU expenditure on Bulgaria and Romania has been previously agreed for 2007–10, assuming that accession takes place in January 2007. Spending will total approximately €15 billion over the three years and will not be altered by our recent proposals for the financial perspective or the agreements made on it. Of that total, roughly €5.5 billion will be devoted to agriculture-related spending and approximately €8 billion to structural funds. I stress that those figures are from recent negotiations and had, up until then, been indicative.
	Of course there is a significant amount of money in the package, by any standards. But, as your Lordships will be more than aware, most of the accession costs are being borne by the new member states themselves—the objective being, over time, to ensure that net recipients start to contribute to the EU budget. Spain and Ireland are good examples of that and, indeed, Slovenia and Cyprus are performing strongly in that regard among the newcomers.
	I turn briefly to Clause 2. Under the terms of the accession treaty, the UK has the ability to decide what level of access it offers Bulgarian and Romanian workers, up to a maximum period of seven years after accession, before Community rules on the free movement of workers come in. Clause 2 gives the Government a wide degree of flexibility in deciding these terms.
	With accession still over a year away—and possibly two—it is too early to decide now what the level of access should be, and right to keep our options open. We may want to continue the current work permit scheme. Conversely, we may decide to offer more lightly regulated access along similar lines to that given to the workers of the eight central and eastern European countries who joined in the 2004 enlargement.
	As we have seen, that policy has proved a real success. Over 293,000 nationals from the A8 registered with the worker registration scheme between May 2004 and September 2005. Most workers registering are young and have taken on jobs throughout the country. Less than 1 in 5 is based in London. They are employed in a broad range of industries from administration to healthcare and farming, industries where there are serious gaps in our own labour market. They are contributing to the UK's economic growth and to our tax revenues without being a burden on the state.
	Of course, we must recognise that the situation could change. That is why we intend to take a decision on the level of access we grant to Bulgarian and Romanian workers nearer the time of their accession. In reaching any decision we will want to consider the requirements of the labour market and other member states' decisions. The Home Office, the Cabinet Office, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister will all be involved in that process and I should stress that any future regulations will be subject to parliamentary approval through the affirmative procedure.
	In conclusion, the United Kingdom's strong support for enlargement is well recognised throughout the world, across Europe and not least by Bulgaria and Romania themselves. Many of your Lordships on both sides of this House have played an extremely important part in bringing us to that point. We should be in no doubt that this enlargement is a real success for United Kingdom policy. It is a success both for this Government and for the country as a whole. I am certain that all of us here today will want, in the clearest possible terms, to welcome Bulgaria and Romania to the club. I commend this Bill to the House.
	Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Triesman.)

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I apologise to your Lordships and to the Minister for missing the first few minutes of his opening comments. I can assure the House that by an extraordinary manifestation of cross-party support and consensus, I have been able to ascertain the general drift of what the Minister said—indeed, the precise words. I hope he will forgive me. The timing caught me short.
	I want to make it clear to the Minister—it is probably evident to him—that there is broad and strong support from this side of the House for the Bill and for the aims and purposes behind it, notably the treaty that the Bill seeks to bring into British law. However, the Bill raises a number of acute questions about the enlargement and the whole future direction and character of the European Union to which the answers are far from clear. Indeed, in recent times, they have become even less clear. I shall return to them in a moment.
	First, I turn to the precise purpose and detail of the Bill, which is to give effect in UK law to the accession treaty opening the way, as the Minister has explained, for Bulgarian and Romanian membership of the EU. That treaty is an extremely bulky document, which I have here—I can hardly pick it up. It was laid before Parliament last August and contains four sections. One of those sections is redundant as it concerns the interaction of the treaty with the proposed European Union constitution, which has, of course, capsized and sunk to the bottom of the sea where, in my view, it deservedly lies. The section dealing with the relationship between the treaty and the constitution no longer is of any particular use.
	That is slightly odd because we were assured at the time of the debate on the constitution that our doubts about it were destructive and that the constitution was necessary—I believe those were the words of the Prime Minister—for enlargement to proceed. At the time we questioned whether the Prime Minister and the Government had that right. It turns out that our questioning was right and the Government were wrong. It is, of course, nonsense that the constitution was necessary for enlargement. Certain improvements and changes are necessary but the ill judged, ill constructed and ill directed constitution was not one of them.
	However, the episode reminds us of an important aspect of all these enlargement negotiations, and this will not be the last. There is no doubt that there is more to come with Macedonia, Croatia, Turkey, Serbia, Ukraine, Belarus—who knows?—and others. Each time there is an accession process the newcomers are stepping on to a moving platform. The EU is, to put it bluntly, in flux. The rules by which it is to be governed are unsettled; the powers and competences of the central EU institutions are in dispute—although the constitution tackled them, it failed to solve the problems and without the constitution they remain unsolved—the social policy dictates, as people increasingly recognise on all sides, paralysing economic growth in the union; and the future budget, to which I shall return in a moment and on which there has been in the words of the Minister "recent agreement", rests on vague undertakings about agricultural support which may or may not materialise. They seem to be hanging in the air.
	In a sense there is a sort of time warp at work. These new entrants believe, or are being led to believe and no doubt want to believe, that they are joining a European Union or a European Community of the kind that existed some years ago; namely, a mighty oasis of free-market vigour and democratic freedoms and values which some years ago seemed to be a bastion against Soviet communist tyranny and corporatist socialism, and an engine for expanding free markets and open markets and doing away with protection in world trade. That was the EU—before it was called a union it was called a community—that many of us admired and thought was definitely an entity that all countries in this region of the world should seek to join and join quickly. Of course, today things are not like that at all. Today the EU has lost its free-market vigour. The Soviet Union is no more and today Europe is trapped in a dense network of centralist regulations and restrictions and, as the Financial Times said this morning in its editorial, Brussels is no longer the motor or driver that it once was.
	In a way it is a pity that we cannot offer these new arrivals a better welcome and a better ambiance to join. It seems to me quite wrong, for example, that they should be required to sign up to the whole of the acquis communautaire—that is the massive book of EU powers of at least 88,000 pages and some say it is nearly 98,000, many of which are completely out of date and belong to an institutional structure and process which is not relevant in this century. Indeed, they belong to the age before the information revolution which has made the dispersal of power so much more desirable and practicable, and centralism so much more inefficient and unnecessary. In my view, a really vigorous assault on redundant acquis powers is one more thing that should have happened and one more missed opportunity under the dismal British presidency.
	Clause 1 makes the accession treaty part of UK law and deals with increased powers for the European Parliament. It does not say anything about the safeguard and postponement clauses that the Minister rightly explained, which would allow negotiations to be delayed if certain criteria in the two countries were not met. I would like to ask the Minister a couple of questions about these, since safeguard measures can be triggered by old member states—the United Kingdom, among others—as well as by the newcomers.
	Who makes the key judgments as to whether the negotiations should be suspended for one year, as they can be under the treaty, or whether commitments are being met, either on the internal market front or in justice and home affairs? Who is the judge in all this? Is it the Enlargement Commissioner's say-so, or is there an open procedure? Or is there an appeal avenue? These are serious judgments, with serious effects. The Commission apparently has to pronounce whether good governance and accountability are up to standard, but is it really the body that we feel is absolutely the best to do that? One has to note that it is a bit strange that these sorts of judgments come from a body whose own standards leave much to be desired, which is not free itself of corruption taints and whose accounts the auditors regularly refuse, year after year, to sign off.
	It is undeniable that both these new accession countries have had difficulties in cleaning up corruption and curbing organised crime. However, having had the privilege of a pleasant visit to Sofia just a few months ago, it was clear to me that under the extremely well balanced and wise management and leadership of ex-King Simeon, enormous progress has been achieved. That is gratifying indeed. However, it seems to me that those of us who want to see these two new entrants fairly treated in the coming negotiations ought to be much more inquisitive about the powers of judgment and how they are going to be exercised than perhaps we have been in the past. I would like to hear more from the Minister on all this.
	Clause 2 deals with the freedom of movement of workers and one thing must be said at the outset. There can be absolutely no confidence at all in Home Office or Foreign and Commonwealth Office predictions about future patterns and flows in this area. Laughably, at the time of the last big accession to the EU, the Home Office predicted between 5,000 and 13,000 immigrants net a year from the new member states into the UK. In fact, Ministers explained that between May 2004 and September 2005 293,000—not 5,000 or 13,000—workers from these countries were accepted on to the worker registration scheme. As I have calculated it, the departments here were out by about 2,200 per cent which is, frankly, not a brilliant forecast.
	As the Minister reminds us, many of those immigrants bring welcome skills and seem to be well spread out across the country and have contributed to economic growth, although there are inevitably one or two less desirable groups and practices that have crept in. But when the Minister says the policy has proved "a huge success", surely what he really means is that the success has come despite the Government's initial and frankly idiotic policy assumptions, and not because of them.
	It is therefore no surprise that this time with this smaller, but equally important, accession phase, the Government are adopting a much less cavalier and a more hands-on attitude and are reserving the power to restrict the right to work of Bulgarians and Romanians, as the treaty allows. We are told that the actual level will not be decided for another year or so. I just hope, as we all do, that the Government have better information on which to decide than they did last time. We will have to see.
	Will the Government be proposing the same restrictions on benefit entitlements as those which they had to bring in last time, when it was realised that no other member state was being as silly as we were in initially eschewing all transitional arrangements permitted under those accession treaties at the time?
	Finally, I turn to the costs and the budget. It says in the Bill, and the Explanatory Notes confirm, that there will be,
	"no significant additional public expenditure".
	The Minister has explained that there will be a cost of £10 billion, or €15 billion, over three years and this obviously has to fall on somebody. We are told that most of these costs will be borne by the new member states themselves. Is that really right? My own researches suggest that the UK contribution invariably increases every time new enlargement proposals go forward. I accept that these sums are contained within overall existing capped budget limits—or the recent agreement, as the Minister calls it. A more accurate wording in the Explanatory Notes to the Bill would have been "no further additional public expenditure". That would have been nearer to the position and would have been more accurate. I still wonder who makes room for these new outlays within the existing budget.
	Of course we must pay, and we have paid, our fair share. These are brave and spirited nations who treasure their independence and share our view here in London of how Europe should develop. But what is hard to bear is that these extra resources are being found not by cuts in the wasteful and destructive subsidies to French farmers, but from the hard-pressed budgets of the rest of us. And it is even harder to bear to be told that this is a wonderful bargain for the UK.
	The truth is that the proposed further enlargement, which we welcome, must inevitably put the whole CAP structure under even more strain. Justice and fairness cry out that the system should be radically revised now if Europe is to become the more flexible and fairer network of more equal states which most of us—alas, not all of us—want to see.
	We must face the fact that there has been an utter failure to go that way, with only vague and unbankable assertions that things will be reviewed in due course. Instead, some shameful but luckily unsuccessful proposals emanated from Whitehall and the Foreign Office some weeks ago, which alienated our friends in central and eastern Europe and left wounds which will be remembered, despite the subsequent attempts to patch things up and the assurances given in the final agreement.
	Enlargement is far from popular in many member states of the EU, but here in the UK we on all sides take a positive view—which is what the Minister said, and I agree with him—and we have remembered that in the best parts of our history we have been on the side of the smaller states of Europe against the bigger bully-boy countries. That is the position as I have understood it, but in recent weeks our foreign policy makers—wherever they are in Whitehall—who are obsessed by fashionable notions about "being at the heart of Europe" and the "post-modern state" and all that nonsense, have lost sight of our true friends and interests.
	Let us hope that with this Bill, and with the accession process bringing these two nations into the European family, we remember again who our best allies are, that we remember what kind of Europe we really want to see, and that we work for it much harder and more skilfully than we have in recent times.

Lord Thomas of Swynnerton: My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Biffen, with whom I had my first disagreement on Europe well over 50 years ago.
	It is fitting that a historian like myself should be among those who rejoice—to use the word of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, in another connection—at the prospect of welcoming Bulgaria and Romania into the European Union. The noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, may be remembered as having said in a neglected passage in her speech at Bruges in 1988 that it was essential for us in western Europe to keep a candle burning to light the way of such countries as these we are talking about towards liberty. I think we can say that, after 1988, that candle burned very well.
	These two countries have much in common. As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, said, the territories of both were in the Roman Empire in the days of Trajan. It is fair to say that the recovery of those Roman borders has some relevance to what we are trying to do in Europe today. Both countries were, from the middle of the Middle Ages to about the middle of the nineteenth century, dependent on or subject to the Ottoman Empire in one way or another, while the Muslim armies of the Sultan swept on—not just once, but several times—towards Vienna, in a threat to Europe which must have seemed more alarming than Muslim fundamentalism does today.
	Both countries emerged from the night of Ottoman control in the late nineteenth century after the Congress of Berlin in 1878, in which two Members of this House, Lord Salisbury and Lord Beaconsfield, played a major part. That congress led to the formation of two small states, initially directed by German monarchs; one, a minor member of the Hohenzollern family; the other a Saxe-Coburg, a member of that extraordinary family which gave kings to Portugal, Belgium, even Britain, as well as Bulgaria. Both these states found it hard to survive from the time of their creation through the whirlwind of war and diplomatic struggles of the First and Second World Wars. Poor Romania was caused to fight against both Germany and Russia in the Second World War. Both states, it is important for those in this House to recall, were let down badly in 1945 by the western Allies, despite the Yalta conference's declaration on liberated Europe.
	One friend of mine, a member of the British military mission to Bulgaria in 1945, found that his first duty was to attend the execution of 68 parliamentarians. That assignment helped to make Malcolm Macintosh an especially acute observer of the Soviet military machine in subsequent years.
	No doubt because of Soviet brutality later on, both Bulgaria and Romania have shown astonishing lack of bitterness at the western failure of the immediate post-war years, a failure which resulted in the imprisonment or death of hundreds of admirable people who expected support from us. I mention only the name of the ex-Romanian Prime Minister Maniu.
	Though they have much in common, these two states also have many differences. For example, Romania maintained her contacts with the West—particularly France—through her Latin-based language. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, mentioned that point.
	Bulgaria's position should not be neglected. In the Middle Ages she constituted a major empire, a threat for a long time to Byzantium, and also preserved her orthodox Christianity during the long era of Ottoman control. Both Bulgaria and Romania have had close relations with Russia from the 16th century onwards for obvious geographical reasons, though Romania's were basically destructive. Bulgaria's—at least until the communist era—were usually benign.
	Modern Romania has constituted four territories: Moldavia and Wallachia which constituted the heart of the country after 1878; Bessarabia which after several improbable changes is now the independent state of Moldova; and Transylvania which was wrested from Hungary in 1919 under the Treaty of St Germain. Bulgaria has experienced fewer territorial changes, though she did lose a priceless outlet to the Aegean in 1919.
	Romania had oil, hence the German occupation of the 1940s. She also had both a fascist movement and a substantial Jewish minority which was later largely massacred. The cleverness of King Boris of Bulgaria should not be forgotten since he did much to save the admittedly smaller Jewish population of that country. However, Bulgaria did have the dubious honour of enduring the longest reign of any communist satrap, that of Zhivkov who was in power for 35 years in Sofia—just before the noble Lord, Lord Biffen, went there for the first time.
	In rejoicing at the likely entry of these two tragic but resilient countries into the European Union, there is one further thing that I should say. Throughout their history, both have been affected by their associations with larger enterprises, whether the Hapsburg, the Ottoman or even the Soviet empires. Thus they are not like the great nation states of western Europe such as ourselves, France, Spain, perhaps the Netherlands and Sweden which have enjoyed five centuries of untrammelled sovereignty and naturally find it more difficult to forget or neglect the attitudes so formed. Thus though both Romania or Bulgaria could throw up European statesmen of importance—ex-King Simeon might turn out to be one—it is unlikely that they will aspire to lead Europe as France has or as Britain could have done.
	That brings me to comment—this may seem irrelevant but it is, all the same, important—that, like others, I have pondered on the reasons for the astonishing transformation of British politics over the past 20 years which has caused the party of Europe—which the Conservative Party was from about 1960 until 1988—to change places with the Labour Party, which until 1988 seemed, to say the least, unenthusiastic about associations with the European Union.
	The noble Lord, Lord Howell, touched on why he personally had moved from an old enthusiasm to a modern scepticism. But I think this change occurred for a different reason. I think that about 1988 Conservative leaders realised that Britain had lost the chance to lead Europe—a chance which could have been theirs. Those who led this country into Europe—Lord Stockton, Sir Edward Heath, Lord Duncan-Sandys, for example—

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I am enjoying—as I do always—the speech of the noble Lord, Thomas. But he suggested that I had moved. No. The European Union moved and those of us who believed in free markets and were against corporate socialism stayed where we were.

Lord Bowness: My Lords, I support this Bill, although I must say to the Minister that the one argument I felt was not dreadfully compelling was that it enabled Tesco to go marching across the continent. Although the treaty of accession has been signed by Romania, Bulgaria and the other member states, I know those two countries will be anxious to hear that the treaty has in effect been ratified by the Parliament of the United Kingdom by the passing of this Bill.
	I must declare an interest, in that earlier this year I was a guest at the Romanian senate for three days. The people who were kind enough to see me when I was in Romania emphasised just how important membership is for the process of reform. Those with whom I spoke, including their former negotiator in Brussels, did not view the European Union in quite such depressing terms as my noble friend Lord Howell—who unfortunately is not here—described it this afternoon.
	As has been said, the treaty envisages the possibility of the accession date being delayed until 2008. Everyone I spoke to said that such a delay would have a profound effect on the work that was being done to bring the country to the standard required by membership. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, referred to the problem Croatia had with General Gotovina. When their accession process stalled briefly, public support plummeted, although, happily, I believe it has come back. I found in Romania that there were worries that the decisions on accession might be more political than objective, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, and that the European Council might not be looking closely at how far Romania had been able to meet its obligations.
	We were told when we were there, and people we spoke to accepted, that there were problems with administration and judicial reform, competition and environmental issues. However, they all emphasised that the reform had been accelerated through the prospect of joining the European Union. At that time, in the summer, the government's efforts were focused on judicial reform and competition policy. There were still problems with the judiciary. The relevant Bills on competition had gone through parliament but there was a need to ensure that they were enforced.
	Others to whom we spoke referred to the large rural population, who hoped that the European Union could offer advantages since, they believed, Romania was more competitive than many CAP countries. Apparently Romania does not subsidise agriculture at present, although it imports subsidised goods. Accession would help to create a fairer playing field. There was a need to change the agricultural pattern from one of subsistence farming to a market economy. Interestingly, they foresaw farms getting bigger yet remaining organic. Everyone agreed that Romania clearly needed to implement all its commitments to join the EU, but that the actions taken have been costly in some areas. It was therefore important that it proceeded. Others whom I met said that the economics of accession were less important than the message that integration would send to the public and to investors, and that the process of change was quicker if you were inside an institution, where certain objectives had to be met.
	It is critical that the problems of the constitutional treaty, whether it sits on the bottom of the sea or not—and we should recall that there are often successful expeditions to salvage the best of what has been sunk—are not allowed to stand in the way of enlargement, particularly in the case of the western Balkans. It is, as other noble Lords have said, a driver for peace and stability in all countries. Macedonia's acceptance as a candidate country at last weekend's European Council was important. I hope that the enlargement strategy paper, which has changed the rules since the last enlargement round, will not be used as a political weapon to delay and restrict enlargement. Dashed hopes in the western Balkans could have disastrous results.
	I suspect that the presidency conclusions of 15 and 16 December to which the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, referred could be used to delay all future enlargements—especially, the sentence which refers to:
	"The absorption capacity of the Union",
	which,
	"has to be taken into account".
	If the European Union, and in particular its large member states, were to play with the hopes of the countries in the western Balkans—never mind those that are the subject of the European neighbourhood policy—it would be not only unfair but, in my view, also potentially dangerous for Europe.

Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, it is a great pleasure to support the Motion so ably moved by my noble friend Lord Triesman. Since we joined the European Union, there has been a stream of new and successful enlargements. We had, successively, Greece, Spain and Portugal moving us up to a community of 12 members; then Sweden, Austria and Finland moving us up to 15; then, last year, the 10 new countries acceded, taking us up to 25. Now we have Romania and Bulgaria and, waiting in a line, Turkey, Macedonia and, possibly, Croatia.
	Everybody seems to want to join the European Union. No politicians are seriously griping anywhere across the Union, other than here in the United Kingdom—where we seem to have more than our fair share. In welcoming the proposed enlargement the noble Lord, Lord Howell, sounded about as enthusiastic as Scrooge welcoming Christmas. I think he was having one of his bad days today; I much preferred the tone of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who seemed enthusiastic indeed about what he was supporting.
	Yesterday saw parts of the United Kingdom at their worst; mainly, those parts represented on the Conservative Benches in both Houses. They profess to want to be in Europe, to want to support enlargement and to want policies that support economic reform in eastern Europe. They want to do everything but pay their fair share of the bill for that process.
	Perhaps the worst service ever done to serious discussion of Europe was that performed by a former prime ministerial demand that we want our money back. That demand reduced Europe in so many people's minds to a balance-sheet exercise and yet most of the real benefits have been seen in the political and security consequences of many of the successive enlargements to which I have referred.
	In Greece, we saw the return to democracy following the overthrow of a military junta and the membership of the European Union underpinned that democracy. In Spain and Portugal we saw the replacement of General Franco and Salazar by newly emergent, political democracies, again fully underpinned by their membership of the European Union. Even when we saw successful, economically prosperous, net-contributor countries joining—countries such as Sweden, Austria and Finland—we saw them all face up to very real political problems about their different sorts of neutrality and decided, despite the views that at one time they had thought were obstacles to them joining the European Union, that their global political and economic influence should be expressed by membership of the European Union.
	The more recently liberated-from-the-shackles-of-communism applicants all sought to re-establish their sovereignty and democracy within the framework of that same European Union. They are our natural allies, sharing our view of Europe. They did not reject the centralisation of the former Soviet Union by seeking to join a European Union that would then be one in which they surrendered their new-found freedom and their new-found independence to the centre at Brussels—no more will Bulgaria or Romania. Like us, they want to remain members of a Union of sovereign nation states.
	My noble friend Lord Triesman was correct and proper to emphasise that what we have before us in this Bill is not a fully done deal, based on the assumption that both countries will automatically join the European Union on 1 January 2007. There is the possibility for either or both to be delayed for a year. Our obligation is to ensure that the serious work is continued. We must ensure that the process of economic liberalisation, the necessary judicial reforms, the tackling of the environmental problems, and dealing with the problems of corruption and organised crime are continued. In that role both we and the European Commission must assist in those and other problems. It is correct that it is far more important to get the accession right than to get it quickly.
	The noble Lord, Lord Biffen, in a fascinating and very interesting speech, sounded an important warning to his friends on his Front Bench on the views of Angela Merkel. She sounded some very interesting views as well. I was fascinated to see the letter she has reportedly sent to Mr David Cameron, looking forward to close co-operation with him within the framework of the European People's Party. I am not sure whether it was that letter that led to the appearance in today's Independent of a full page article, which I noticed at the bottom, in small print, said it was co-financed by Conservative MEPs and the European People's Party, which they are supposed to be about to leave. Or is that just another view that is about to be jettisoned under the kind of pressure from Mrs Merkel. However, the noble Lord, Lord Biffen, was right to emphasise that institutional questions have to be tackled. They needed to be tackled after the enlargement to 25, and they are as imperative as ever, if not more so.
	I remain an unapologetic supporter of the outcome of the Convention on the Future of Europe. The institutional proposals in that convention are infinitely preferable to those that we have in the Treaty of Nice. We have to face up clearly to what we are going to do in relation to the institutional proposals that came from the Convention on the Future of Europe which suit an enlargement much more satisfactorily than those that we have had to revert to in the Treaty of Nice.
	We used to hear a great deal about fortress Europe, about Europe being a rich man's club, about Europe being introspective. Enlargements have given the lie to those allegations and so does this Bill, which, I believe deserves our full support and shows Europe as being the preferred way of all these newly democratic European countries to be able to express their own aspirations within the framework of the economic and political stability that the European Union gives them. I support the Bill.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, we on these Benches welcome the Bill. Looking at the Bill in its full length and complexity reminds me of the benefits of being mainly concerned with foreign affairs in this House. I took part in a Second Reading debate of one of the Home Office Bills the other week and I did my best, as I looked through it—through Article 60 and Article 80 and further—to appreciate how much harder, in legislative terms, my colleagues on other policy teams have to work. When I picked up the Company Law Reform Bill the other day, that was an entirely different matter.
	The careful balance of the European Union's approach to enlargement, particularly with reference to Bulgaria and Romania, seems to me entirely the right approach: that we should welcome the European states which move successfully through the painful transition from authoritarian regimes and state-run economies to open economies and democratic government into membership. However, we should, at the same time, insist that they meet the necessary political, economic and administrative conditions required for membership.
	Enlargement has been the most successful foreign policy that the European Union has conducted over the past 25 to 30 years. I can remember visiting Portugal, Greece and Spain in the mid-1970s as they began to move away from authoritarianism and it is astonishing how far—Portugal in particular—they have moved. The quality of Greek administration today and so and so forth all owe a lot to their membership of the European Union, which helped a great deal. We have seen the same with the eight east European countries that have already joined and we are following the same path with Romania and Turkey. We need to do the same with the rest of south-eastern Europe: with Croatia and with the other countries of the western Balkans. We are attempting to do the same with Turkey.
	This is not a distant part of Europe. I was happy to hear the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, reminding us of the Bruges speech made by the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, in which she spoke of eastern Europe being very much part of our Europe and which we had to look forward to coming into our Europe. That is what we are now very much working on. As he went through his historical dimensions, I was thinking about how much the history and population of eastern Europe is tied in to our own country. Every time I visit my father-in-law's grave in Bradford with my wife, I see the Polish section and the Ukrainian section of the same graveyard, carefully tended.
	I used to have many enjoyable conversations with Lord Roll, long-since departed, about Ruthenia and his time growing up there. This is not a distant area about which we know so little, although I am not entirely sure about Dacian regiments and whether or not those of us whose ancestors come from southern Scotland should count Dacia as part of our blood. Furthermore, one does have to remember, as we play around with where we think Europe stops, that the Emperor Charles IV settled all those Saxons in those towns in Transylvania to defend the boundaries of Europe, as he saw them, against the barbarians coming in from the east again.
	We have to be very careful about further enlargement beyond this. I disagree with some noble Lords who have spoken. We have some difficulty with populations in other western European countries—I spent some time in the Netherlands during and after their referendum—where there is some resistance to enlargement. If we are to hold to the line on the western Balkans and on Turkey we must discuss how much enlargement carries on thereafter. There are those who talk not only about the Ukraine but the southern Caucasus. The Government and their partners in Europe need to talk about how we make the ineffective neighbourhood policy that the European Union is now pursuing more valuable—about how a broader European economic area and political consultation is put into effect.
	Various noble Lords have mentioned costs. The costs are relatively modest. They, and certainly the noble Lord, Lord Howell, did not talk much about the benefits and the investment in stability and security which assisting these countries to move towards open market economies and effective and non-corrupt administrations provide for us. We now spend half as much on defence as we did 20 years ago. This is investment in our security in a different sense.
	The budget deal that we have just achieved was not too bad. I have two criticisms of it; first, that the British Government should have avoided offending our natural allies in eastern Europe—the Poles, the Czechs and the Slovaks—with our proposals before the final stages to cut what was transferred to those countries; and, secondly, that the Government should have used the occasion to argue not only for sharper changes in structural funds towards the new members, but that more money needs to be spent from the common budget on foreign policy regarding countries outside and around Europe with which we share common interests.
	I was sorry to hear the noble Lord, Lord Howell, following what seemed to be the Daily Mail's "misery agenda", as it is now called. The noble Lord, Lord Turner, said the other day that the difference between the free market in Europe and the free market in the United States was that in Europe we regulate, but in the United States they litigate. The costs of litigation in the US are absurdly high, so there is something to be said for our level of regulation.
	Clause 2 refers to the free movement of labour, which is a delicate issue that we must all be concerned with. It is difficult to extrapolate long-term migration flows from short-term migration flows. In the past year there has been a significant surge of people into the United Kingdom, but the net figures for the previous year were negative and it is not clear whether last year's surge will be maintained for the next 10 to 20 years. I note that in Spain, Greece and Portugal, the flows of migration that accompanied their moves towards the European Union were reversed as they became more prosperous. All three are now countries of net immigration, rather than net emigration. Most of those who came to the European Union in the process of accession have since gone home. I anticipate that the same will happen in Poland, the Czech Republic and others. Yet again, that is a reason for us to invest in helping them towards greater prosperity.
	The noble Lord, Lord Howell, should be careful about following the MigrationWatch agenda in this respect, which provides us with the worst possible extrapolations of current trends. After all, the principles of the free market rest on the four fundamental freedoms of trade, services, capital and labour. I hope that liberals—and I understand that the Conservative Party is moving in their direction—interfere with those freedoms as little as possible. The conditions are important. I note that in the other place the Minister for Europe said that accession was not yet a fait accompli. I now understand that to mean that it is not simply a question of whether there will be a delay of one year, but that accession itself is not yet absolutely guaranteed.
	The European Union rests on the quality of national regulation, national courts, national policing and national and local administration. That is what holds together the single market and our shared political and social space in Europe. It is important to maintain that, which is what the Copenhagen conditions do. The Commission's comprehensive monitoring report in October 2005 expressed serious concerns about corruption and organised crime in both Bulgaria and Romania. From visits to both countries I am aware that there is a degree of overlap between organised crime and corrupt administration. People talk about the "deep state" with reference to Turkey; certainly, people in Sofia have talked to me about the deep state in terms of the links between some aspects of the administration and organised crime. I read the report on the problems of Bulgarian court procedures and the case of Michael Shields, which Louise Ellman has raised in the other place.
	The noble Lord, Lord Howell, asked what would happen next and how would we know what was to happen next. Here it is in the Commission's comprehensive monitoring report: the Commission will present to the Council and Parliament in April/ May 2006 and may recommend that the Council postpone the accession if there is a serious risk of any of those states being manifestly unprepared to meet the requirements of membership by January 2007. The Commission will make a proposal and the Council will reach a decision; this is the normal way things operate. The two states will be treated separately. I should like to say in passing that I note that the British Government have given high compliment to the quality of the Commission's work on enlargement. This is and remains one of the best areas of Commission work. I think we may all have particular confidence in Olli Rehn, who has a British PhD and I can recommend to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, his thesis on the political economy of small states in a globalised open market. It is the sort of thing I am sure he would enjoy reading; I speak as a former supervisor.
	Conditionality standards and the current member states are something that we might wish to touch upon. Some of us have some concerns about whether Italy fully meets current standards in terms of the quality and diversity of its free media, the problems of its financial corruption and even, perhaps, the independence of the judiciary from the government. I touch on that only in passing. We on these Benches welcome this Bill. British interests are clearly served by further enlargement to the eastern and western Balkans. This is about our stability and our security. For that the Government have strong support from these Benches.

Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, I, like my noble friend, Lord Howell of Guildford, warmly welcome this Bill and am grateful to the Minister for moving the Second Reading. It has been a fascinating debate; we have heard the history of Bulgaria and Romania, slightly potted, from the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, personal experiences from my noble friend Lord Biffen, and other noble Lords' experiences. With your Lordships' tolerance, I will concentrate mainly on Bulgaria. I go back to the start of its European Union aspirations, because I took the Bulgarian Europe agreements through the European Parliament in the 1990s, when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, reminded us. I declare an added interest in Bulgaria as a governor of the American University in Blagoevgrad. The degree of consensus on these Benches and in the other place is extremely pleasing and, I hope, represents the widespread appreciation both of what the European Union can do for Bulgaria and Romania, and what they can do for us.
	A Bulgarian friend of mine pointed out with great pride the enormous achievements of young Bulgarians worldwide. Their international achievements include world-class opera singers, mathematicians, chess players, computer programmers and so forth. There is no doubt that, once accepted, both Bulgaria and Romania will play a significant and constructive role in the European Union on our populations, economies and cultural wealth. They will also have significant power within the European Union institutions, with Bulgaria wielding the same number of votes as Austria—10—in the Council, and of seats—12—in the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, and the European Parliament—17. Romania, because of its larger population, will have even more.
	The experience of the last round of accessions, where not just two but 10 countries were accepted with similar potential for success and failure, has been very positive. I see few reasons to believe that this round of accessions will not go equally as successfully. However, there are areas that are worrying. Despite Bulgaria and Romania having GDP growth rates significantly above the EU average, both have GDPs of around a third of the EU average. Both countries have done a commendable job in squeezing in all the acquis communautaire laws in order to comply with the EU deadlines. But the laws now need to be implemented. Specifically, the Bulgarians must revise their judicial system and make certain that at long last criminals are sentenced and accordingly sent to gaol. It is unacceptable that so far not a single boss of the criminal world is sitting behind bars.
	The European Parliament has already demanded greater effort in stamping out such crimes. The European Union, too, still has to make the necessary institutional reforms as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Biffen to cope with the present and future enlargements. The sheer enormity of the task facing the European Union and the tasks facing these two countries make their preparations for 2007 seem a Herculean task. Ten years ago this month, the European Council took the decision to let Bulgaria become a European Union member when it met the political and economic criteria, regardless of its place in the queue, up to 2007. That was a huge spur and encouragement. It also presented a steep hill to climb. We should congratulate the Bulgarian people on having strived so diligently, despite having suffered great hardship along the way, to meet the requirements. They are nearly there.
	We must use every method possible in the time left to us to encourage these countries to fulfil the requirements and prepare themselves effectively for their accession. The alternative, so rightly stressed by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, is unthinkable. I wish them both the best of luck and I end by returning to Clause 1. We on these Benches urge that the ratification of the treaty and that of the Bill go through Parliament as quickly and as smoothly as possible.

Lord Triesman: My Lords, I start by welcoming the spirit in which this debate has been conducted—irrefutable evidence were it ever to have been needed that Bulgaria and Romania will be welcomed, for the most part certainly, into the European Union by the United Kingdom as friends and equal partners. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part. The noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, spoke very clearly on behalf of their respective parties and I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for pointing out that this is a brief Bill—small but, I think, perfectly formed.
	As I said earlier, the United Kingdom has always been a strong supporter of enlargement, and it is not difficult to see why. Successive UK governments have supported enlargement because it has brought security, stability, and prosperity to our continent.
	The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, made the vital point about the passage of history and the general state of development. That is reflected in Article 49 of the treaty of the European Union. It offers the prospect of membership to any European state. There may be feelings on all sides about how far Europe has stretched, but I feel that the discussion needs to go a little beyond generalisations into real-life issues, as my noble friend Lord Dubs urged.
	Enlargement works, as it has done for all the accession countries. It has worked for us, and restrictive policies have not been a credible approach to the issues of security and prosperity. It is vital to carry it forward. We need regular reports and discussions on the west Balkans, Turkey and Croatia, as well as Bulgaria and Romania. It should not be a small discussion in a private garden. The noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Wallace, reflected the scope of this joint project of discussion. The enlargement agenda is packed. Bulgaria and Romania are making preparations for membership. Turkey and Croatia are in negotiation. Further integration and discussion is taking place on the western Balkans. All recognise the importance of the work, but it is also important to communicate the benefits of enlargement and to ensure that public opinion understands what those processes are about.
	Let us take, for example, last year's accession of the 10 eastern and central European states—those to which the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, drew particular attention. My noble friend was quite right. The prospect of membership unquestionably helped to boost their economies in the run-up to accession. Membership has been achieved, and we can see the advantages. Growth rates are as high as 8.3 per cent in Latvia and 5.3 per cent in Poland. It is a virtuous circle. High growth provides job opportunities and helps to raise living standards in the new member states, and provides new trade and investment opportunities for the United Kingdom. Since May 2004 British businesses have had access to a market with 70 million more consumers. I am sure that Tesco is taking some advantage of that, and I guess a good many others are, too. The accession of Bulgaria and Romania will add a further 30 million to that growing market.
	My noble friend Lord Tomlinson identified the value of seeing the benefits and putting them into the picture. How appropriate it is to lead through those advantages to a discussion on security. In particular, I welcome the way in which my noble friend introduced the security issue by focusing on how the fall of dictators and the recovery from decades of dictatorship have enhanced our security. Greece, Spain and Portugal saw that extreme Right dictatorships could have that legacy eradicated by understanding how Germany had developed inside the EU. I have little doubt that communist dictatorships came to have to face their people's understanding of the nature of those dictatorships because they, too, could see from those examples the value of living in a totally different way.
	Enlargement also means that we can live in a more secure Europe with closer co-operation on border control and on tackling organised crime. New member states have brought experience and knowledge to specific regional problems. Their expertise has enabled us to get one step ahead of the drug and human trafficking gangs working through eastern Europe. A good example was the arrest of sex traffickers in Sheffield in October, which came about through specific co-operation with new member state police forces.
	Enlargement also means the accelerated adoption of human rights and democratic standards that we have established in Europe right across the continent. Let us not forget that only 15 years ago people had to take to the streets in many countries across central and eastern Europe to demand those changes. Since then, the prospect of European Union membership has driven and supported political developments of the kind that we have discussed this afternoon. For many eastern Europeans, EU membership represents the final step in their country's transformation from dictatorship to democracy.
	Thankfully, Romania and Bulgaria are coming to what may be the end of their journeys. We will judge it but that is what I hope. Their paths have not been easy. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, reminded us of the depth of their historical struggle and, not least, of the obligation that we owe for the failure to recognise what was needed in 1945—a point made with great force. More work still needs to be done. But the significant changes that have already taken place are a credit to the vision, energy and determination of the peoples and Governments of Romania and Bulgaria, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, said, the dynamics of change are bound up in all those things. That is a powerful point on which to reflect when the discussion on the western Balkans becomes significant. In my judgment, the noble Lord is 100 per cent right to say that, as we go forward, we must not play with people's aspirations; we must be serious about them. I welcome that point.
	Perhaps I may address some of the questions asked by noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, was kind enough to give me some indication of his speech, and I appreciate that. I was asked who will make the key judgments on whether the negotiations should be suspended for one year. The Commission will produce another monitoring report. I take comfort from the quality of its reports thus far, and it will report in April or May 2006 on the preparedness of Bulgaria and Romania for accession. On the basis of those findings, the negotiations on one or both countries will be delayed if there are outstanding areas of concern. It will then be for the Council to make the decision on whether to defer the accession of the offending state or states. In practice, the Commission is unlikely to recommend delay if there is no political support or cause for such a recommendation.
	The key judgments will be made in the way that I have described. The single market and JHA safeguard clauses allow the Commission to impose protective measures to correct difficulties in the initial three years after accession. Member states can request that the Commission takes appropriate measures to address a particular concern, or the Commission can act on its own initiative, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, rightly pointed out.
	I was asked whether there would be an open procedure. I believe that there will be. The reports will all be published and they will be very visible. I have no doubt that we will debate them in your Lordships' House on every occasion that noble Lords feel it is appropriate to do so.
	I was asked whether the countries can appeal against the safeguards. There is no appeal procedure but I believe that the conditions set out are well understood. They have been signed by Bulgaria and Romania and I think that they understand the procedures involved.
	I say to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that there is no significant additional public expenditure. The EU expenditure is capped over each financial perspective and there will be budgetary limits. The enlargement of Bulgaria and Romania will therefore not involve additional costs above those agreed by the United Kingdom. But of course the redistribution of structural and cohesion funds to the A10 states and to Bulgaria and Romania over the course of the next financial perspective will see the EU 15 states accessing less than they would have done in previous years.
	A question was raised about the Home Office's predictions of the number of workers moving across Europe. I should say that the figures came from a paper and research from University College, London. I have no doubt that that was carried out in the best way possible. As we enter the next phase, I think I can say that the research methodology has probably improved—one always hopes that that is the case with research methodology in general.
	I welcome the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, that the flow of people in Europe has moved backward and forward and has reflected market conditions. That is because it is a market economy and this is a market. That is what happens in markets, and that is what we always wanted of the European Union. As I said, at the moment no decision has been taken on possible restrictions or subsequent access to public funds in the light of the decisions because obviously we will need to know more about numbers.
	The noble Lord, Lord Biffen, raised the issue of the impact on common agricultural policy arrangements. Enlargement does not destroy the prospects of CAP reform, difficult as those prospects have been shown to be in recent weeks. The accession treaty makes provision to adapt the parts that relate to CAP where that is required by further enlargement before accession.
	The Bulgarians have stated that they would like to go through our ideas on CAP reform, and that they want to work with us on moving towards a more rural development approach than the current CAP arrangements. The radical reforms of 2003 and 2004 mean that the CAP is now less trade-distorting and less environmentally damaging, but I would be the first to say that there is still a great deal of work to be done. I acknowledge that.
	The noble Lord, Lord Biffen, also described the financial arrangements as a kind of Marshall aid and as more desirable if they were transitional payments. Let me say that the negotiations—your Lordships will have seen that the figures are important—have come about because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, has just reminded us, the economic circumstances of those catching up are important. They are still very much poorer. They still need to come to a position where they can compete on a level basis. Their people are half as wealthy as the rest of Europe. That is a big gap to make up. It may be difficult. All negotiations are, but the accession countries have welcomed the outcome in the last few days.
	I say to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, that of course it was a sharp discussion—it was a negotiation. I seem to have spent quite a lot of my life doing negotiations. One of the things that I have learned about them is that for much of the process there is very little cuddling involved. Actually, as you get a little beyond that, post-agreement, recovery is usually pretty rapid, because everyone understands that strong positions are taken during that process.
	The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in the context of saying that delay would not be a disaster if problems were still to be overcome, asked a bit more about the corruption issue. I am afraid that both countries, given their poor rankings in the Transparency International 2005 corruption index, have to face big challenges. The goal of accession will, I think, drive the changes. The simple fact is that it will have to drive the changes. Not least, constant inspection will be needed to ensure that EU funds themselves are not lost to corruption. That would be a double travesty. The Commission is to pay the closest attention to this, and our embassy liaison staff are working with others on the anti-crime issues, including money laundering and other sorts of crime. It may well be that money laundering is one of the reasons that the banking system has been difficult to encourage on the ground.
	Certainly more work is also needed on discrimination against the Roma. We discussed it recently in the House, so I will not say anything in huge detail, but the Commission is bound to take that issue into account. A proper platform of human rights is invaluable and cannot be ignored.
	The number of applications for Romanian citizenship from Moldovan nationals is low. Since 2002, I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, 2,355 Moldavians citizens have been granted Romanian citizenship, based on figures provided by the Ministry of the Interior.
	The points I made about banking investment do not, I am happy to say, apply to other kinds of investment. Vodafone has acquired the Romanian mobile phone company earlier this year, for €2.5 billion. UK exports to Romania in 2004 were up 19 per cent on the previous year, to a value of about £606 million, which is well worth having. That involvement is one we want to see going forward.
	The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, asked whether we were giving attention to what I think was a point about the Michael Shields case. He asked it in a slightly oblique way, but I understand the point that was being made. Michael Shields, who is in prison in Bulgaria, is receiving strong consular attention, and I give my assurance that he will continue to get that attention, as will his family.
	I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, was very positive about this development, because of her important knowledge of Bulgaria. She is quite right: in the midst of everything, the Bulgarians must revise their judicial system. The new judicial procedure code, passed to improve the efficiency and transparency of the pre-trial phases, is now on the books. There are 12,000 new police investigators—and my word, that is necessary—and the Ministry of Interior Act has been introduced to modernise law enforcement structures. These are all vital measures.
	In my concluding comments, I want to turn to the fundamental part of the exchange—the exchange between many Members of your Lordships' House and the noble Lord, Lord Howell. It is the exchange that I want to have with the noble Lord as well, because it lies at the heart of how we look forward. I admire the depth of the noble Lord's thinking; I have seen it many times in the House and have heard it elsewhere as well. But I wonder whether it has led him to the wrong balance of conclusions. Obviously, I do not accept his argument that this has been a dismal presidency—I could go through a long list of the presidency's achievements, but I will not—but I want to come to the heart of what he said.
	The noble Lord is right that there are significant ambiguities about the direction and character of the EU. These are big debates, as we are all aware. He is quite right to press the arguments about the protection of industries, particularly agriculture, in a way which may have helped their post-war recovery but it does not make much sense in a modern economic setting. I, too, am uncomfortable about the extent and complexity of regulation. I have no differences with him on those points. These characteristics can impede vigour and renewal in European Union markets and in civil society itself. But my overall conclusion is different.
	We live in a continent which was historically renowned for the length, extent and violence of its conflicts. Some great peoples, despite the extraordinary sophistication of their culture, proved in recent history capable of acts of extraordinary barbarism that have come to scar all recorded history. We traded blows with many of them more readily than we traded goods. Even in the past decade and a half we have seen a resurgence of ethnic violence and mass murder in the former Yugoslavia. Yet we have not only created a community that is growing to, and will, I hope, grow well beyond the 25, in which intransigent enemies of world wars and the Cold War now co-operate; we are also a fountainhead of decent values, the spread of democracy and the rule of law. People who saw Europe bathed in its own blood and capable of industrial-scale murder in its gas chambers now look to us as being nations which can give them examples that they can follow in their own finest aspirations. My noble friend Lord Tomlinson also made that point. Those aspiring to join this peaceful and prosperous market strive against the legacies of dictatorship, corruption and lawlessness to gain their place in much better societies and a much better community. That has been the greatest spur to change.
	Has the transition been flawless? Does it provoke occasional heart-searching? Do all the nations of the 25 and beyond approach these questions in exactly the same frame of mind? In this huge market, and among this diversity, of course they do not. But overall, however bumpy that ride, it is one of the most progressive and genuinely entrenched progressive developments that could possibly have been seen against that stark history and background. Who could deny that? New arrangements will be needed—they will be debated hotly, but that fundamental trend is there. It is an achievement of global proportions in my view; it is no cause, if I may say so to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, for deep pessimism.
	I know the noble Lord to be a strategic thinker. I invite him to re-evaluate the flow of Europe's history. That is what we are debating in this House, and if we get it wrong, we are more likely to lapse back to what we have tragically experienced than go forward in the ways that have been so encouraging.
	On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

Lord Grocott: My Lords, it is now my duty to move the adjournment of the House for the last time this year. It is a pleasant duty, and tradition has it that we take this opportunity to pay tribute to people who have retired during the course of the year and thank the staff of this House for the tremendous service that they give us. I am happy to do that. The House will be excited to hear that as well as me emerging from the shadows to do this, so will my fellow members of the usual channels and the Convenor. We shall then revert to the shadows until this time next year, which suits us fine.
	It is a good time of the year for me. The prospect of a Recess is always a pleasant one for me, and the thought of being reasonably confident that I can go for two and a half weeks without any government defeats enables me to sleep more easily. Before I pay tribute generally to the people who serve us, there are one or two names that I want to mention. I have put them in order of length of service, which I think is fair enough, starting with the longest-serving among those who have retired, or are imminently about to.
	I begin with Priscilla Hungerford, who has given no less than 37 years of service to this House, which is pretty phenomenal. I think it spans six Prime Ministers. She has fulfilled a number of roles, most recently one familiar to the House, that of visits co-ordinator. We all thank her collectively for that incredible length of service.
	The next person I would like to mention is David Jones, the Librarian, who will soon be retiring. In his case, it is after 28 years of service. I am not only thanking him but, on behalf of all of us, acknowledging the incredible service that we get from the Library and its research staff. Many a time I have made a speech, and I am sure this goes for all of us, where, if someone had cried "Author" at the end of it, I would have had to have said "The Library". It provides a wonderful service to all of us. Our very best wishes to David Jones.
	I must mention, as is almost customary on these occasions—especially as they are standing ominously around the Chamber—the Doorkeepers. There are two to salute. One has, in part, been saluted already: John Kirtley, our Principal Doorkeeper who retired a couple of weeks ago. He had given 19 years of service, was held in great affection by this House, I know, and he held the House in great affection. We do indeed wish him a long and happy retirement, and our thanks for all that he has done.
	His colleague, also well known to many of us, Jack Blood, was the deputy Principal Doorkeeper, with, coincidentally, 19 years of service. He retired a little earlier, but I would like that to be recorded in Hansard. Our thanks to him as well. He had service over many years, but it was almost hereditary in his case—appropriately for this House, I suppose—in that his father was the Principal Doorkeeper in the Commons for quite some time. We salute and thank Jack Blood.
	I should also thank the former Editor of Debates. I include our intrepid Hansard writers in our thanks to Jackie Bradshaw, who had 18 years of service, first in the Commons and then here. Just as the librarians and researchers write our speeches, it is the Hansard writers who ensure that they are grammatical, even if they were not when we delivered them. They perform a tremendous function.
	A couple of other names are also worthy of our thanks. I have noticed in the past that we tend to pay tribute to those who are constantly at the forefront of our attention because, obviously, we meet them day in, day out. There are many other people who service the House behind the scenes, however. That is the nature of the job.
	One in particular comes to mind who has given great service. John Rankine is retiring after a relatively short period here but a long period beforehand in the Civil Service. He has played a key role in giving advice on the expansion of the number of staff who serve us. Although this has happened behind the scenes, this has been as extremely important job and we salute the work that he has done.
	There are a couple of other tributes that I would like to pay before I sit down. One is unusual—well, not unusual for me but unusual for me in my role as Chief Whip of this House—in that it is a party political tribute. I shall leave it to the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, as it is his principal responsibility. But we should recognise the fact that Celia Thomas will shortly be leaving her present role in the House. She has given tremendous support to the Liberal Benches over many years. Service to a political party is a noble service. It may not be fashionable but service to one particular party is a particularly noble service. My consensual mode will prevent me from mentioning which party that is. No doubt most noble Lords will acknowledge that, whatever bad press we get from time to time, political parties are a vital part of our democracy and a noble calling. We wish Celia a happy retirement—if that is the right word.
	Finally to departments. The one that we must acknowledge has been working under the greatest difficulty and pressure for obvious and good reasons due to the major rebuilding is the refreshment department. How they have continued to serve us with the difficulties that they have experienced in the rebuilding of the kitchens has been phenomenal. Collectively I thank them on behalf of the House.
	Let us conclude by mentioning all the departments of the House. It is a privilege in more ways than one to be able to speak in this Chamber and be a Member of this House, but it becomes a pleasure and a privilege when the people who help, serve, guide and inform us in various ways are always unfailingly helpful and supportive.
	I wish all of them and all noble Lords in the Chamber a very happy Christmas and a splendid New Year.

Lord Cope of Berkeley: My Lords, your Lordships all know that the usual channels work very closely together and occasionally we are seen to work closely together. This is one such occasion.
	I am delighted to support the noble Lord the Captain of the Gentlemen-At-Arms in thanking all the staff of the House. We have a splendid staff. We are very well served by all of them. Beneath the patina and polish of the public face of the House of Lords, there is an amazingly efficient and surprisingly modern set of systems and staff working for us. That is nowhere better demonstrated than in the changes that have taken place in the Library during the time that David Jones has been Librarian. He has been Librarian for fifteen years, though he worked in the Library previously as assistant Librarian. During this time the Library has "gone electronic". The changes are startling to those of us who have been in this building for some time. All libraries—but particularly our Library here—have changed with the introduction of computers and electronic records. He has overseen that work extremely well here and had a distinguished time in doing so.
	Other changes have affected Hansard in recent years. Jackie Bradshaw has been Editor of Debates, as has been mentioned. The great rise in Grand Committees doubles the work of Hansard for large parts of the day. The Grand Committee is still sitting now and will still be sitting after the Chamber has risen. Changes of that sort have taken place and Jackie Bradshaw has been at the forefront of those in her department.
	John Rankine has been mentioned in connection with advising on staff and so on. He also had to help us to deal with all kinds of changed regulations, and to ensure that we used our staff to best effect and that they are looked after.
	The most long-serving of those mentioned is Priscilla Hungerford. We have seen her not only in her official duties in the House but quite often in her voluntary duty as one of the stewards of the Abbey, helping to sort us all out when we go to parliamentary occasions at St Margaret's, Westminster. I hope that we shall continue to see her in that capacity and I pay tribute to her role.
	More obvious, as the noble Lord mentioned, are John Kirtley and the other doorkeepers. John Kirtley was the Principal Doorkeeper and did a first-class job. Jack Blood, who retired in October, was a regimental sergeant major in the Coldstream Guards. During my national service I was subject to the ministrations—if that is the right word—of regimental sergeant majors in the Coldstream Guards. I have to say they were not quite the same. One did not get quite the same view of them as we do here, where they serve us extremely well. Jack Blood's ancestor came to some prominence at the Tower of London in the time of King Charles II, but perhaps we ought to draw a veil over that for the moment.
	But, as the noble Lord hinted, many other people serve us in all capacities—the Clerks, Hansard, Black Rod's Department and the Works Department. Sometimes we are in danger of tripping over things because of the work which is being done. It is a very difficult building to look after, improve and modernise, which members of the Works Department do all the time, helped of course by the cleaners and so on.
	The Refreshment Department has already been especially mentioned. Its members have had a very difficult year but have served us well. I pay tribute to the staff of the Computer Office, the Library, the Record Office and the staff of our own Whips Offices, too. Celia Thomas was particularly mentioned and I support what was said about her. Like members of the usual channels, who you see in evidence today, they also work closely together in the interests of the House, as do all the people I have mentioned.
	So, on behalf of Her Majesty's Official Opposition in the House of Lords, I am delighted to support everything that has been said and to thank our staff. I wish them a happy Christmas and I wish all of us a very good 2006.